Drake watched as the crazy agent strutted up to the bed and straddled the lightly bound man. She actually looked like she was enjoying herself. For a moment he watched, spellbound, then remembered.
He had a job to do. Feeling a little like fresh meat being led to the kill, he leapt from balcony to balcony until he reached the backside of the house. Then, he started to smash glass and throw patio furniture about until it splintered. He shouted and screamed until lights started to come on, not just where he was but all around the house. After a minute or so, he proceeded back, smashing the tall glass doors and on one occasion elbowing one of the shocked guests back into their room.
It didn’t take much to cause a distraction. Just noise and an example of violent intent.
By the time he returned to Doku’s balcony, Mai was already throttling the life out of the Chechen kidnapper. Drake moved quickly, expecting the door to be kicked in a moment before it actually was.
Three guards shoved inside, eyes registering shock at the scene that greeted them, but no real surprise. Drake understood. Doku was a weirdo. But then the guards saw Drake and brought their weapons quickly to bear.
Too late. Drake crushed the first’s larynx with a palm chop, damaged the second’s eyes with a two-finger strike, and incapacitated the third by head-butting his nose almost through the back of his skull.
Mai landed deftly beside him. “Not bad, soldier boy. But I could teach you a trick or two. You ready?”
“For what?”
“Me!” She leapt into his arms, screaming hysterically.
Drake got the idea. With a swiftness born of excitement and determination, he barged his way out the door and into the brightly lit hallway. Mai spun in his arms and kicked the door shut behind them. “That way!”
Drake carried the sobbing girl past a gaggle of guards, threading a path through milling guests and inebriated hangers-on, listening hard as Mai mumbled directions into his chest. It wouldn’t be long before Doku’s men found them and then the game would be up.
Mai screamed a bit too loud. Drake squeezed her hard. “Careful.”
“Ooo, I like that. But, my new friend, we’re here.”
“Oh.” Drake dropped her and faced a solid wooden door. Mai used the key. The lock turned. Within half a second, they were inside. Several banks of monitors greeted them, all with live video feed. Of course, many were hooked up to the private rooms, but just as many scanned the common rooms and the grounds.
Mai produced a matchbook. Drake stared at her, but didn’t dare ask. Her sinful smile said it all. She picked up a chair and proceeded to smash every screen in sight. Drake followed suit. It wouldn’t completely disable a state-of-the-art security system, but it would incapacitate it long enough for them to escape. Mai exited the room, flicking a match. Drake tried to keep up. The corridor stretched both ways before them, empty for now.
“Do you want me to pick you up again?”
“Maybe later, after we’re clear. But for now stay close.”
She pulled him along the corridor, past a series of rooms, some with doors flung wide open to show ornate furnishings and fancy four-poster beds. When they reached the windows at the end, Mai pulled up short. “Oh.”
Drake’s heart jolted. “Whaddya mean—oh?”
“Plan A and Plan B may have become muddled. We ran the wrong way. This was where we ended up at the end of Plan B.”
“You mean the fuck it part?”
Mai peered through the window. “Yes. The fuck it part.”
Drake stepped forward. He saw a thirty-foot drop straight down to the swimming pool. Mai was staring at him. “The water’s lovely and warm.”
Drake heard shouting in the halls adjacent to them. It wouldn’t be long. “Plan B,” he said for the first time in his life. It wouldn’t be the last. Mai ran into a nearby room, a streak of tanned limbs and white designer nylon. She returned a moment later with a heavy desk lamp and launched it through the window with all her might.
“We couldn’t just open it then?”
“All locked. No keys. Doku doesn’t afford his guests much freedom.” Mai flicked away the shards and perched barefoot on the wide sill. “It’s been wild, Drake. See you at the bottom.” She paused and ran an eye over his clothes. “You stripping?”
Drake coughed, almost choking. “Bollocks to that.”
Mai laughed and threw herself backward, a free spirit, crazy-good at her job. Drake wondered how anyone so young could be so expert. Did the Japanese train them from birth? Wasn’t that the way they used to train Ninjas? He’d read somewhere that the Ninja clans had all but died out — with only a handful left.
Without another thought, he climbed onto the sill, recognizing that their escape counted on them remaining unseen, and threw himself out into the warm night. A heartbeat of nerve-wracking tension zipped by and then he crashed feet-first into the churning waters, trusting Mai to give him space, shooting down until his shoes clipped the bottom of the pool and then kicking back up as hard as he could.
He broke the surface spluttering, wiping streaming water from his eyes. Mai floated easily beside him, laughing. She pointed to the pool ladder and struck off powerfully. Drake pursued her hard, now laughing himself, and followed her up the ladder. Mai took a second to appraise the area and then sprinted for some nearby trees. By the time she stopped, panting, they were lost among the thick trunks and hanging boughs. Fire blazed from the top floor of the mansion they had left.
Mai pulled him along for a few more minutes until they broke free of the trees and emerged near a shallow lake with a smooth, sandy beach. Moonlight glittered across its flat surface. When Mai’s toes touched the lapping waters, she used a judo throw to set him on his back. He didn’t resist.
She climbed on top of him. “This is one relationship I think should be consummated immediately, Mr. Drake.”
That was his first experience of Mai Kitano.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The caves were dark, musty, full of cobwebs and debris, dirty-smelling and unconnected. Apart from shelter from a storm, they offered the castaways nothing. After a cursory check, Drake and Mai soon realized their time would be best spent elsewhere. They took some time circumventing the mountain from the height of the highest cave, but even up there, at that time of the morning, the hanging mist refused to relinquish its secrets.
“Bastard gets thicker by the day,” Drake said, dubiously. He shielded his eyes, squinting. Mai turned her nose up at him.
“Whoa, you stink, my friend.”
“Well, thanks. Guess I forgot my Lynx.”
He led the way down the mountain, head still pounding in a turmoil of mixed feelings. He’d become very conscious that Mai had been leading the way since they’d been shot down, much like she had led the way when they first met. He ploughed down the steep mountainside until he reached the foothills and then the forest. Of course, he knew where they were going long before he admitted it to himself. It was a foregone conclusion, had been for some time.
The lake glistened invitingly, sparkling with promise. Mai regarded him innocently from beneath hooded eyes. “Remember the first time we discovered a lake together?”
“Vividly.”
She unzipped her jacket, the sound loud in the stillness, and shrugged the heavy material off her shoulders. It fell to the ground with a thunk. With her hands above her head, she stripped off her vest. In another minute, she had unbuckled her trousers and stepped out of her underwear.
Mai Kitano stood before him naked. It was a sight he remembered well, a sight he would never forget. He watched as she turned and sauntered into deeper water, at length turning to face him once more.